Population boom puts pressure on police as DV, crime spikes

Carly Morrissey
Reporter
Carly Morrissey stared her journalism career with APN at the Dalby Herald in 2006. After two years there she took a job at the Gympie Times where she spent four years covering council, court, politics, sport, emergency services rounds and everything in between. In 2012 she became Editor of Big Rigs National Newspaper where she remained until 2018 when she started with the Springfield Daily Record as a reporter. In 2013 Carly won an APN editorial award (non-daily reporter) and was a finalist in...

LAST month Springfield police responded to 940 call outs, making for one of the busiest months on record.

Acting Senior Sergeant Brendan Haley said the station was dealing with a population boom which lead to increased calls for service and crime.

Compared to April last year, calls to service had increased by 300 for the month.

Acting Snr Sgt Haley said those extra calls were often related to domestic disturbances.

"A lot has to do with the increased public awareness of DV," he said.

While there were more calls, Acting Snr Sgt Haley said not all of them turned out to be a DV matter.

However, domestic violence order breaches have increased consistently since October last year with 22 in March and 18 in April this year, bringing the total from the past six months to 120 in the Greater Springfield area.

Police data also shows the overall number of crimes in Greater Springfield are on the rise, with a total of 327 offences recorded in March this year, the highest on record for the past 10 years.

In April the trend continued upwards for stealing, traffic and public order offences.

Acting Snr Sgt Haley said with more houses being built in the Springfield area, property offences had increased, from 85 in March to 105 for April.

Those property offences were predominately theft from construction sites.

"Last month was a perfect storm with school holidays and public holidays there was an increase in building sites vacant for longer periods of time than normal," he said.

And with people away on holidays not as many people were around to raise the alarm.

Also with petrol prices at a high there was an increase in fuel drive-offs and stolen number plates in April.

"Stealing of number plates is a constant issue for us," Snr Sgt Haley said.

"We spend a lot of time following them up."

He asked the public to secure their plates with anti-theft screws which would not only stop plates being stolen, but could help reduce the number of fuel drive-offs as stolen number plates were often used by criminals to steal fuel.

During April around a third of police from the station were also tasked to the Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast meaning remaining staff were put on overtime rosters.

Snr Sgt Haley said the remaining staff were tasked with policing traffic and public order which translated to more detected traffic and public order offences.

Traffic related offences for April were up on the previous month from 15 to 27.

Public order offences increased from 18 in March to 30 in April. But he expects those numbers to drop with winter coming.

"A number of additional drug offences came in with the traffic offences, including drug related driving."

Police want to remind people to lock their homes and not to leave keys in cars at home or at service stations.

"It would be a great help if people could go to their local hardware and purchase screws that can help prevent the theft of number plates."